The Lady Death Left Behind
by Audrey Brackett
Summary: Yet another Immortal!Scully fic...or is it? Scully reflects on the events of "Tithonus"


AUTHOR: Kate Mulder  
EMAIL: Enigma806@aol.com  
TITLE: The Lady Death Left Behind  
RATING: PG-13 because Scully's so dark.  
CATEGORY: Scully Angst, Vignette, post-ep, very minor MSR but NoRoMo safe  
SPOILERS: Major, major spoilers for "Tithonus". A few scattered references to other eps.  
SUMMARY: After her near death in "Tithonus", Scully has a little too much time on her hands to just think.  
DISCLAIMER: If Mulder and Scully were mine, I'd have talked to Bellisario Productions and had a dang Quantum Leap crossover by now! They're Chris Carter's, though...but I still highly recommend the idea!  
FEEDBACK: clears throat, begins to sing Cherish is the word I use to describe...all the feeling that I have waiting for those lil notes you wriiiiiiiiiiiite! You don't know how many time I check my mail hoping...all right, never mind, that's enough. So I don't get sued, I also don't own the song I just shamelessly parodied.   
NOTES: Post-ep for "Tithonus". Is Scully immortal now? I personally doubt it, but I'm a card-carrying member of the Keep Scully Human League. Here's my thoughts on the ep. Forgive me, Ritter fans, for Scully's harshness toward him, but if I'd been in her situation, I'd have been pretty ticked at him. She probably was and didn't show it, IMHO. This is going to be kind of rambling and disjointed--it's on purpose. Trust me.  
DEDICATION: To Lurlene McDaniel, both for writing the book whose title inspired this story, and for writing such incredible, realiztic, emotional stories...books that I have adored for years. I have the original print of most of them! Also to Gillian Anderson for the absolutely wonderful portrayal for Scully at the end of "Tithonus" that made me swear to one day write a post-ep, no matter how long it took me to get an idea!  
  
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It's been a week.  
  
A whole damn week since that punk Ritter nearly killed me.  
  
Okay, so maybe I'm being too hard on him. He's not a punk, he's just...okay, so he is a punk. But it was an accident, or so they say. He didn't know I was behind Fellig. He didn't see me. He didn't know that bullet would go right through Fellig and *then* through me.  
  
But the fool could have at least announced his presence. The idiot could have said he'd had a gun. I'd have gotten out of the way.  
  
Mulder just went to talk to my doctor. I'm really worried about him. I know he didn't think I could hear him, right after I got out of recovery. He was talking to Ritter, outside my room...I don't remember the exact words (if you'll forgive me, I was kind of out of it at the time), but he said something about how if I died I wouldn't be the only one. He'd kill Ritter and then himself.   
  
I'll be all right now, but I'm still worried about Mulder. We were both hurt. Mine was phsyical, his was more pyschological. But wounds to the mind can be the worst of all. They take the longest to heal.  
  
Mulder's right outside my room now. He's talking to Ritter. They exchange a few words. I can make out "lucky" from trying to lip read. Then Mulder walks into the room. He smiles, in that way of his. That smile is enough to make me give up any hopes I might have had of a "normal" life, just to see that smile.  
  
I'm still a bit groggy from the drugs they've got me on. I've switched from morphine to Demerol. I hate the way Demerol makes me feel, though. Don't get me wrong--I'd rather have the drugs than the pain. But I wish I wasn't so damn *placid*. I'd actually like the energy to get mad, riled up. But maybe that's the sheer beauty of the plan. I'd probably rip some of my stitches if I were able to do as I pleased.  
  
"I talked to your doctor," Mulder says, trying to cheer me up. "He says you're making the fastest recovery he's ever seen."  
  
That's not going to cheer me up. I talked to my doctor as well, and I heard the same words. But bless him for trying.  
  
We exchange more words, words I won't remember later. We talk about Fellig. I think about how close I came to dying on the floor of Alfred Fellig's apartment. Bleeding to death like a damn stuck pig.  
  
I mutter a few more meaningless words, then finally get around to say what I'm really thinking. "People don't live forever."  
  
Mulder's expression changes slightly, and I can see several emotions flittering around in his all-too-expressive green eyes. Those beautiful green eyes. Relief that I'm okay. Fear of losing me. Wistful nostalgia of the old days--just me and him, chasing X-Files til the cows came home. Or bees, as our situation were.   
  
"No..." he finally says, "I really think he would have."  
  
I just look at him, asking for more information with words unspoken. He puts his hand on mine. "I think that death only looks for you...once you seek its opposite."  
  
What, did I want to live forever? Is that why death came looking for me? Or is he saying those with a death wish will never get it?  
  
Fellig's words haunt me. "Don't look...close your eyes." Okay, so in all technicality, I closed my eyes because I lost consciousness. But I could see Death coming out of the corner of my eye. It wanted me. Fellig took my place. Just as another had taken his place.  
  
Oh, my God...does that mean *I'm* going to live forever? I sure hope not.  
  
But now, Clyde Bruckman's words float through my memory. "You don't die."  
  
At the time, I thought he was merely flirting with me. I still want to think that. I don't want to live forever. I thought at one time it would be a good idea. But I saw how tortured Fellig was by it. How callous he'd become. A hundred years from now, I don't want to be that same tortured, callous person. I don't want to outlive everyone I've ever known.  
  
And if I've inherited his damned immortality, I won't even be able to kill myself when I get to be about 90, 95 and I've lived a long (hopefully full) life.  
  
But Fellig said he was out of his mind with fever then. Maybe he stayed that way. But he was also a child. Children come up with funny things in the face of death.  
  
And shouldn't I know? I stood by helplessly, watching my darling little girl die not so long ago. Emily. Tears come to my eyes just thinking of her.  
  
Mulder is gone before I realize it, I'm so lost in thought.  
  
I'm not going to live forever. I'm not. I just can't.  
  
I'm not suicidal, don't get me wrong. I want to live a long life. I want to have the happy kind of life you dream about when you're a little kid. I just don't want eternity to be my playground, not in this life. Heaven...yeah, sure, that's different. I'm in no rush to get there right now, but that's paradise. I don't want to spend the rest of this life on this earth living forever is what I mean.  
  
Damn you, Fellig. Damn you for telling me the story and making me worry about this thing. Mulder thought he'd have lived forever. But Mulder also believes in little green (grey, whatever) men from Zeta Reticuli. People do not live forever. There's gotta be a rational explanation.  
  
Yeah, Scully, hide behind your science. That's the way to do it, a part of my mind chides. A part that sounds suspiciously like Mulder. I tell it to shut up.  
  
I happen to glance over at the stand near my bed, where a nurse left her book the night before. Or *a* book. _The Girl Death Left Behind_. Damn, the kid on the cover looks so lost.  
  
I know how she feels. I share her plight. Death left me behind. Will we ever meet again?  
  
I won't live forever. I just won't. Maybe if I say it enough, it'll be the truth.  
  
Besides, as Mulder told me once, there's a very good reason not to live forever--drawstring pants are coming back into style. I don't know what the hell he meant by that, but it seems like a good enough mantra for me, the woman death forgot.  
  
We all die sometime. Maybe this was my time. But I cheated death this time, and death rarely responds to those who cheat by ignoring them all together. Mulder's tempted death enough times for me to take this as fact. I smile, slowly.  
  
As masochistic and morbid as it seems, I feel secure in the knowlegde that one day, my time to die will come. A time to be born, a time to die. A time for everything.  
  
Now it's time to get on living my life.  
  
End  
6/29/00  
  
  



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